Von der Leyen II: a litmus test for the new Commission
The European Commission, chaired for a second five-year term by German politician Ursula von der Leyen (EPP), officially took office on 1 December after receiving the green light from the European Parliament. In parallel, Portuguese Socialist politician Antonio Costa began his term as President of the European Council (the regular meeting of the 27 heads of state and government, representing the highest political entity of the European Union) and Estonian Liberal Kaja Kallas started her term as the new EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and Vice-President of the Commission.
The European Parliament approved the Von der Leyen II Commission “by a narrow margin”: 370 votes in favour, only nine more than the required majority (the hemicycle is composed of 720 MEPs). In July, however, von der Leyen had managed to secure 401 votes in favour of her nomination.
Meanwhile, the majority’s cards have been reshuffled by some of her own decisions.
The Greens have pulled out, some members of the EPP and the Socialists and Democrats group (S&D) have not confirmed their confidence in the College (mostly for contradictory reasons), and there have also been defections among the Liberals. The new Commission did, however, receive some support from the Conservatives (lukewarm supporters of the EU, who voted against von der Leyen in July), who saw in von der Leyen’s programme and the composition of her team sufficient grounds for a ‘yes’ vote.
One of the elements that most influenced the vote of confidence – for or against – was precisely the enlargement of the majority to the right. This was something that von der Leyen strongly pushed for, going so far as to appoint as one of the vice-presidents of the College the Italian MEP Raffaele Fitto, a member of the Conservative group, whose vision of European integration has traditionally differed from that of the People’s Party and, above all, from that of the S&D, the Liberals and the Greens.
This means that the cards on the table have changed. Some commentators are of the opinion that Von der Leyen will be weaker than she has been in the past five years and more subject to the dictates of national governments. Others, however, see the Commission President as having more freedom of action, with control over her commissioners and enjoying greater autonomy vis a vis the European Parliament. One thing is certain: according to the Treaties, the Council and the Parliament are the EU’s main institutions holding legislative and budgetary authority, while the Commission has other functions (legislative initiative, ‘guardian of the Treaties’, daily engine of the Union) that cannot be separated from the first two.
Von der Leyen will have to bear this in mind because, sooner or later, it will be necessary to confront the difficulties that were put on the back burner. These include:
the multi-annual Community budget (MFF), the response to the war in Ukraine and the military and financial supplies to Kyiv (when will there be a real EU peace initiative?), initiatives for economic competitiveness and for strengthening the single market (Draghi and Letta reports); the relations with the new Trump-led US administration; the response to climate change and the Green Deal; the management of migration inflows; the protection of democracy and the rule of law in Europe…
When a new administration takes office, the question arises as to what decisions and proposals it will put forward in its first 100 days. This number is purely symbolic. It remains to be seen how the Commission will proceed in relation to the aforementioned key issues and whether its actions will be firmly pro-European (strengthening European sovereignty and solidarity in a geopolitically challenging context). The future of a cohesive Union open to the world, of its 27 Member States and of 450 million European citizens is the matter at stake.
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